


The Answer

by Ripplite



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Ambiguity, Angst, Character Study, Gen, He really wanted to be., Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, The Pale King is a Good Parent (Hollow Knight)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 13:07:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30106413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ripplite/pseuds/Ripplite
Summary: The precarious rules that they lived by were not set in stone to them, in the way one would think. Rather, the things that had damned them, were things that aided them in accepting and interpreting reality as they saw fit as a “Pure Vessel”.They did not think about how their father damned them to an eternity of suffering, nor did they think that their father may have clung to a sliver of hope that they would be freed, to see this illusion of paternal love crafted in their likeness.They would never of speak this to the Ghost of Hallownest.They would not hope to change the Ghost’s mind on the subject.Certainly not.
Relationships: The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel & The Knight, The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel & The Pale King
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41





	The Answer

**Author's Note:**

> Bold is our Little Ghost, and Italics is for our Pure Vessel.

**It was wrong of him to have done all this.**

_I know._

**He ended up leaving you, too.**

_He did._

**Then why do you defend the Pale King?**

_We did not get to choose our parents, circumstance, and where we are born into the world. I know better than anyone that the purpose of our creation are the chains that twisted us to this sorry state, but I cannot share the sentiment you_ do.

**But why?**

The Hollow Knight found vague amusement in the little ghost's question, but could not find a placating answer.

_I cannot say._

The little ghost looked at them briefly, craning their neck all the way to meet their gaze. Both Knights’ cloaks were drenched from the downpour of water in the City of Tears, but did not move. The two meandered here at their smallest sibling’s request.

**I understand. I am sorry.**

The Hollow Knight turned to them in acknowledgement. Every movement was slight and precious, and they gave nothing away from themselves. After that brief gesture, they looked upon the monument left to them.

_You needn’t be._

With the Infection exorcised from Hallownest like the tumor it was, all that remained was the corpse of a kingdom left open to be pillaged— or built from the ground up, now that it’s era of stasis had ended.

The Hollow Knight had lived in spite of all the odds, and the Ghost of Hallownest had taken keenly to them, intent on aiding their recovery. All other times, they conveyed, that they had encountered upon a sibling, they were already gone.

The Hollow Knight, in many way, was _the_ exception.

**Sibling and I were born for a reason that no longer exists.**

_Yes._

**We are free now.**

_Are we?_

**Yes. We are free. What shall we do now?**

_… I do not know._

The Hollow Knight didn’t share the same zeal that the little ghost had, towards the notion. Lacking a purpose was a suffocating thing to it. Though the Ghost of Hallownest had removed them from their coffin, at times, it felt as if the weight and pull of the chains would never leave them. Their stump of an arm was proof of that— though it remained present on their shade, not even the void of their soul could will it into physical carapace.

**You don’t need to hold yourself back anymore.**

To that, the Hollow Knight canted their head, and did not answer the little ghost. Perhaps more standoffish than intended, perhaps dispassionate, but ultimately— They’re not sure if they ever did, in a manner of speaking.

Life as the Pure Vessel, in truth, was not much of a life at all. To romanticize it would be a folly.

They did not think, they did not speak, nor did they hope.

They were supposed to be empty. A container without a bottom, thus all things would pass by. A thing meant to be zero, so all matter of factors, however multiplied, would come to nothing. The Pale King's hope was to quash the Old Light into nothing, in this manner.

But it was a paradox that they could only acknowledge, in truth. They were supposed to be empty, but their father filled them will all kinds of things. They were never supposed to be known— so why put them on display, if that was the case?

The Pure Vessel was the ultimate reminder of the Pale King’s greatest failure. That he damned an untold number of his progeny to death in their cold and dark birthplace.

So thus— The monument they stood before in the City of Tears; why would the Pale King erect a monument in dedication to one who would never see it? If the temple had been their coffin, was this just an elaborate gravestone? Why would this be in the heart of the City of Tears, and not the Resting Grounds, in that case?

The sealing had been for the Radiance, in truth. It was a crypt meant for her to contain the infection, in hopes that the darkest of night would keep the sun at bay. Swallow it whole, even.

There was one who was qualified for that, standing by their side, but they had been chosen over them. Or rather, their smallest sibling had not been seen.

Perhaps for the best. They would not wish a fate like that upon anyone— least of all their smallest sibling, who had climbed out of the Abyss themselves, experienced one untold horror after another, and was anything but what their father would have wanted.

That is, assuming, that the Pale King hadn’t wanted all of them.

The White Palace had too many rooms with no inhabitants. The King himself did not take up much room in a literal sense.

They were not thinking this, but it was merely fact.

They were taught how to hold a nail, and were given one of the finest make. They were taught how to let the light of their soul shine by the King. They were taught to defend themselves if there was ever a need. They had the education and rearing of a sheltered prince, and for one that was damned since they day they were born, it ultimately made little sense. It would have been easier to give them nothing, and teach them nothing.

Why would the King, who knew better than anyone else, choose to give his Pure Vessel these things? Hallownest would have no heirs, by their father’s decree.

So was it kingly pride that forced his hand, to treat his shadow as if it were a doll to be cared for? Was he, too, forced to keep the pretense of an eternal kingdom that, in reality, was only a sand castle? Perhaps he was no better than the Hollow Knight- a being, or a bug that tried desperately to be what others wanted.

Burdened by the notions of saving his Kingdom, to what extent did the Pale King abuse his foresight? Did the Pale King dare to hope for someone who could not hope at all?

Perhaps, the Pale King was a fool.

But, they were that fool’s child.

There were many factors that led to the Radiance’s defeat, but in hindsight, The Pale King was the great orchestrator— but there was no future that afforded his presence. He had taken his exit so quietly, and vanished without a trace— tearing off his own wings, and leaving the future to be claimed by others who he had left behind, perhaps as penance. An unfair burden on those who had never asked for it, to be true, but it was what was dealt to them. The tools had been left to them to succeed of their own volition.

Why else would the Pale King leave the King’s Brand at the edge of the Kingdom at all, if not for the Ghost of Hallownest?

If anything, though absent in their assistance that bygone age ago, it was an honor this time to assist their smallest sibling’s ascension.

So unknown, yet all encompassing. A Knight errant none knew of, that sought to claim a future that everyone had lost sight of. Though they would perhaps dread to hear it, no danger was too great for them to let Hallownest move forward.

Perhaps that’s what made this small sibling that much more reminiscent of the Pale King.

_Even so._

**Even so?**

The small knight tilted their head.

_If my hollow status is disproven, what am I but a Knight?_

Their shoulders shook with unspoken, self-deprecating mirth.

To be considered an equal to their wayward sibling would have been enough to the Hollow Knight. Not even an equal— the Lord of Shades was beyond comparison. For that reason, they expected a rebuttal for their jest.

But the little ghost pondered this seriously.

A lull of silence washed over them, in the midst of the pouring rain. Like a bell, their thought chimed innocuously, innocently, and factually.

**You are my sibling.**

There was a gentle, childlike insistence. They had to look at the Ghost of Hallownest, then. How frank, for someone who cared for neither sire or dame. How cherished were they, to be loved even by someone who they turned their back to. 

They continued.

**I know neither the White Lady nor Pale King, nor do I wish to know them. Though kept afar, we are both of Void. You and our purpose called for me, so thus, I came. To find you— as potential usurper, then wayward savior.**

There was a pause.

**But we are siblings, before all that.**

The Ghost of Hallownest’s Sibling conceded to it.

_So you say._

The Lord of Shades had surprising depth and an earnest simplicity to all their approaches. If something was out of their reach, they would scamper up the walls. If they were tired, they simply rested long enough until they felt well again. But there was also a complexity to their actions- such as bringing a purposeless sacrifice to see a monument to their failure. But there was no malice in the action. If the ghost willed it, they would be dead a thousand times over, and they would have accepted their eternal quietus in peace.

Rather, the Ghost of Hallownest felt the need to bring them here to see it, if only because they thought it was the right thing to do. And what a way to live, indeed- To do what one felt right.

Their sibling was the paradox of paradoxes. For being as old as them yet being this youthful. For achieving all they had, and knowing nothing of it.

At least one of them came out well-lived.

**I know only of a raindrop's worth of the suffering you have gone through, because of this Kingdom.**

The little ghost continued. They awaited an answer proper this time, though the Sibling could not guarantee one for whatever was to come.

_And what of it?_

**Would you really still care for them in spite of everything?**

The Sibling did not answer.

It was a love that would be unreciprocated at best. They knew that the White Lady held no care for them though she felt shame at their conception— her atonement and refusal to propagate was proof of that. She choose to diminish herself in this dying land in so desperate need of a god because she had no love for the Kingdom, which was built on a foundation of the corpses of her spawn. They did not hate the White Lady for her indifference. They understood it well, after all— it would hurt too much to care.

But there was their idea instilled; the concept that was the only thing pure about them, when it was ultimately their failing to contain the Radiance.

Their sibling perhaps, could not understand it now. Perhaps the answer as the Hollow Knight understood it, would come to them through a different means. Their upbringings were different, and the Ghost of Hallownest hadn’t aged a day since their initial parting. Though this vessel, broken, had failed…

Perhaps their only other tarnish was their belief that their sire— that their father held some kind of love for what he had to destroy. Even if no one else would believe in that. There was no cost too great to see this Kingdom stand, for if it fell, it would have all been for naught. All of their siblings’ deaths would have been for nothing.

Perhaps that’s why the one who was saved was so deeply treasured, in spite of being just a thing.

Yet, the Hollow Knight lived.

Broken, battered, having outlived their purpose to be the ultimate sacrifice, and outlived the Pale Light that once shined upon them in those aching, empty days in the Palace. They outlived the Old Light they were meant to contain for all their days, too.

The precarious rules that they lived by were not set in stone to them, in the way one would think. Rather, the things that had damned them, were things that aided them in accepting and interpreting reality as they saw fit, as a “Pure Vessel”.

They did not think about how their father damned them to an eternity of suffering, nor did they think that their father may have clung to a sliver of hope that they would be freed, to see this illusion of paternal love crafted in their likeness.

They would never of speak this to the Ghost of Hallownest.

They would not hope to change the Ghost’s mind on the subject.

Certainly not.

Though they towered over their sibling that escaped the confines of the Abyss, there was a fleeting moment where they felt the all-consuming void within the Knight’s shadow stretched beyond theirs. The juxtaposition was not lost on them. Both inheritors to nothing, born of god and void. Two different kinds of emptiness. One that meant to hold something, and the other that accepts everything.

The Hollow Knight stared at the statue, and watched as a droplet of water arced down their mask.

**You really loved Him, didn’t you?**

There was a certain unassuming childishness in the Ghost of Hallownest’s thought, as posed to the Hollow Knight. All that unfathomable darkness, and yet, the little ghost knew not of love.

Perhaps, that was their fault for depriving them of that. Maybe the little ghost would think differently, should they express that to them. But there was no argument to be had here. They had time now, to move forward— and not alone, perhaps, due to their Father’s foresight.

The Sibling looked away from their Father’s testament to them, and bowed their head.


End file.
